Okay, Okay. So I left off by telling you that I got to ride a bike in India. It was pretty fantastic, we paid 10 rupees an hour to cruise around through the busy streets and get ourselves out of the city. It was worth it, but if I ever go back and have more time, I’m going to offer to clean up the bikes and get them running smoothly in return for bike time!

my bike

Outside of the city, there was a huge trench built to capture the monsoon rain, but because it’s so dry and it’s a desert area, we rode our bikes in it and along the edge of it. For a bit, we were forced to walk our bikes, because the sand was too thick to ride through.

So we decide that we are going to hike this hill/ small mountain to our left so that we can look out over the city. We park our bikes under a huge tree ( if I knew a single thing about trees, I would tell you what kind it was). It was a tree that looked worth climbing, so began to ponder this idea when we realize that it is full of monkeys. Oops! Obviously we decided not to climb it, but not before an angry mother with its baby, directly above our heads, showed its teeth, squeaked, and swatted its arm at us. In a single moment, my friend and I looked directly at one another and took off, ditching our bikes.

The hill was beautiful and getting our bikes back was a little nerve-racking, but we made it! The whole thing reminds me of a day in Nepal when my friend Alicia and I were chased by a water buffalo with a metal fence around its neck. We escaped by running into a cornfield filled with stinging nettle. Later in the day, we also witnessed a comical monkey scene that I don’t think we’ll ever forget.

Excuse my obsessiveness, but I’ve got a biking analogy to share after biking down a busy street here. It’s one of those obvious ones that could be applied to anything, here goes. So when your biking, it’s exactly like life and traveling. As you are peddling along, you are forced to focus on what you are doing. If you get distracted by the people or all that’s going on around you, you will hit a cow, child, person, or moving vehicle. You can glimpse behind you, but not for long, because you could miss what’s going on around you, furthermore, if you dwell for too long, you’re just going to eat it. Furthermore, you can try as hard as you want to plan your route or see what’s ahead, but it’s impossible and you don’t know what’s going to stand in your path. It could be ANYthinG, especially here. At some point though, you’ve got to remember that your body can’t go on forever in that way. You’ve got to get off and take a break, at which point you can soak it all in and reflect on what you’ve seen and experienced.

I am trying to say that life is a whirlwind sometimes, and the best way to move forward is to take it in strides and be in the moment. Also I hope everyone who is in a place with right climate for biking right now, is putting in some extra time for me!